The City of Melbourne is holding an Art and Design Competition to celebrate the UN International Year of Forests and to raise awareness in the community about the importance of our Urban Forest. Winning entries will receive a prize and will be displayed at various high profile public locations across the City of Melbourne in the months of November and December. Learn more about our Urban Forest in the fact sheet.

We are seeking powerful visual statements about Melbourne’s Urban Forest. We’d like you to visually explore either of the following themes:

why trees are important to you

your vision for Melbourne’s future urban forest

We encourage everyone to think about our trees as they will not only benefit us, but the next generations of Melburnians to come. Trees play a key role in every person’s daily life, whether they know it or not. That’s why everyone should have a say in how our future Urban Forest should evolve. The competition is open to several age categories, including Open (over 18), Secondary School, Primary School, and Under 5s.

Posted in Events, Research by land-environment on September 12th, 2011

21 September , 2011

5:30 pm

to

7:30 pm

Speaker: Associate Professor Tim Fletcher

Urbanisation results in major disturbance to the water cycle, with infiltration and evapotranspiration greatly reduced and the volume and rate of runoff greatly increased. Resulting pollution and degradation of receiving waters is one of the major threats to waterways in Australia and around the world. At the same time, water shortages in cities have resulted in stormwater being considered seriously for the first time as an alternative water resource. This presentation will focus on a new approach, which aims to retain and use stormwater within the catchment, rehydrating urban landscapes, and protecting receiving waters from degradation. It will present as a case study the innovative long-term catchment-scale experiment – the Little Stringybark Creek Project – discussing social, economic and technical lessons for stormwater management.

Professor Derk Loorbach, Dutch Research Institute for Transitions, Erasmus University, Rotterdam and Visiting Distinguished Researcher at the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology

The issue

Australia has ‘inherited’ from the 20th century highly liveable but unsustainable cities, and a very cheap but unsustainable energy system. These and other challenges have been catalogued in Transitions: Pathways Towards Sustainable Urban Development in Australia (2008, Springer and CSIRO Publishers). Visions of where our urban, water, energy, transport and housing systems could be by 2050 have been advanced, but the process of transformation is proving to be intractable.

Towards a solution

Professor Derk Loorbach is a pioneer in Transition Management (TM) and author of a 2007 book with that title. At the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT) at Erasmus University, he and his colleagues have led several major TM initiatives, including a national energy transition program, urban transitions in Rotterdam Harbour and city, among many others. Professor Loorbach will outline the TM process invented at DRIFT, together with case studies, and reflect on its potential for application in Australia.

Running sheet for the event

Professor Peter Newton from ISR at Swinburne University of Technology will briefly outline AHURI’s Greyfield Regeneration project he is leading with Monash and RMIT Universities before introducing Professor Loorbach.Following Professor Loorbach’s presentation there will be a brief wrap-up by ARUP who will introduce the Melbourne Transformation Cluster initiative. The session concludes with light refreshments, drinks and informal networking.

At the recent Sustainable Cities Round Table on Healthy Cities we asked the audience to name five priorities in transport / mobility that would make Melbourne a healthier and more sustainable city. Many people listed “Bike lockers, bike racks and more parking areas at suburban train stations”, “Dedicated spots for bikes on trains / buses”, and “priorising pedestrians” as their top points. Other more unusual responses included “frequent riders (like frequent flyers) to earn points” or “Rewards for people who cycle eg. A reduced cost for health insurance” or even “Teleportation – something to ponder”! The complete list of the responses are below.

Leigh Glover from GAMUT (one of our event partners) introduced Professor John Whitelegg at the recent Sustainable Cities Round Tables on Healthy Cities. GAMUT and VEIL hosted a Low Carbon Urban Transport from November 10th to 13th 2008 where Professor Whitelegg was one of the keyspeakers.

Professor John Whitelegg, international guest from the Stockholm Environment Institute works on projects such as the Implementing Research Group. Similar to Horst’s presentation on active living, Professor Whitelegg highlighted cycling as a sustainable tranport and a way in prioritising the key group for promoting sustainable transport in urban environment. Professor Whitelegg’s inspiring presentation can be seen from the video above.

Horst (Oz), Post Graduate Researcher and Independent Academic, Engineering, The University of Melbourne succesfully made the audience have a little stretching (relating to his presentation on healthy living!) at Sustainable Cities Round Table. He believes that walking and cycling are not only the most sustainable mode of transport, but also the cheapest way to create healthy community. Please view his presentation above.

Lisa Gibbs, Senior Research Fellow, Community Partnerships and Health Equity Research, The MacCaughey Centre, outlined a project cunducted at schools by The MacCaughey Centre, The University of Melbourne. Her presentation, which can be viewed above, was titled “Whats happening in the school communities?” To learn more about their project visit The MacCaughey Centre website.

Cr Libby Mears, a Councillor and former Mayor for Surf Coast Shire and a Chair of the Victorian Coastal Council highlighted the importance of community participation in creating healthy cities. She encouraged us to vote and express our voice for a healthy community we deserve. Please see her presentation above.

“Parks also bring measurable direct and flow-on economic benefits to local, regional, state and national economies. These economic benefits are a key enabler for communities to function and prosper, allowing them to build social cohesion, social capital and healthy communities.” (Parks Victoria Website)

Elaborating the parks as part of a healthy city, Associate Professor Townsend, Associate Head of School (Strategic Planning and Development), School of Health and Social Developmentâ€¨, Deakin University, gave a persentation on how healthy parks create healthy people.